Friday, February 04, 2022

UFO Finish - June Mini Madness 4 inch Blocks

 After not doing too well on the UFO front in 2021, I was a little hesitant about making any big commitments for this year.  But when I started working on filling out the project sheet in my planner for this year, I decided that I might as well give it a try.  I like the APQ UFO challenge - you make a list of 12 projects and a random number is chosen each month to work on.  The number for January was 7, which was the 4 inch blocks I started for my June Mini Madness project.  The only problem was, I couldn't find where I had stashed them!  As I worked on my Island Batik projects and got a little more organized in my sewing room, I kept wondering where in the world they were.  Finally, they turned up at the bottom of a bin that had a large pile of other stuff on it!


I had about half of the blocks sewn, and more cut out and ready to sew.  After I finished up Colorado Memories, it only took me a few days to finish up the remaining blocks, and I just had to choose a fabric for the setting squares and triangles.


Another nice feature of mini quilts is that they are easy to lay out - I didn't need my step stool to reach the top row!  Looks good, so I got it sewn together, then added a nice border with blue poppies.

I layered the quilt with backing and had the perfect size piece of wool batting left from my Colorado Memories quilt.  I wanted to try some free motion on the wool to see how I would like that.  I found a light blue Aurifil 50 weight thread in my stash for the quilting.


I decided to do a free motion swirl hook, and it went quite well!  Up until I happened to spot a little error in one of the blocks at the top of the quilt, anyway!


Can you see that four-patch that's turned sideways?  OOPSY!  


I was glad it was a corner block, so I just had to take out four basting pins, then put the seam ripper to work.


The patch was only 1 inch square finished, so the seams didn't take long to unsew.  Then I just very carefully sewed it back in place, heading in the right direction this time!


Then it was simple to replace the pins and finish the quilting.  I added a dark blue binding, and my UFO for January was finished!


I like it!  It looks really nice on the back of my loveseat in the living room, you can see it from the window outside!  The wool batting quilted nicely and it's nice and fluffy.  I used the solid gray from Island Batik for the backing.  It finished at about 33 x 39.


Nice to have this finished up and off the list! 





 Did you check out this weeks great quilts for the Island Batik Row by Row Blog Hop?  Check out the Island Batik Blog for this week's wrap up - you'll find links there to all the projects featured this week!  There is also a new giveaway!  (Plus you can still enter the giveaway on my post!)



a Rafflecopter giveaway

Hope you have a great weekend!  I plan on working some more on my UFO for February - I'll tell you about that in my next post!

7 comments:

Sumac said...

Love your finished quilt!
If I were to win these fabrics, I would make a small quilt.

cjmont said...

i would make a lone star wall hanging and pillow for my bedroom.

kupton52 said...

If I were to win I'd make a row quilt. I've never made one, but would like to do a miniature version and a bed-size quilt. Your quilts and blocks are gorgeous!

Shelina (formerly known as Shasta) said...

I am glad you found that and were able to fix it easily. The quilting really takes it to a new level. I would make a wall hanging.

Emily said...

Very pretty! I love all the blues! Glad you found your blocks--I hate it when I lose things in my sewing space!

Quilting Gail said...

Congratulations on a super finish!!! I love the blues! And it was nice that you discovered the twisted 4 patch prior to finishing all the quilting!
Beautiful quilt!

Carol Andrews said...

Pamela your little quilt is beautiful. I’m working on my June Mini Madness as well. I had everything cut and some sewing done but it all got stalled now I’m back at it again. Those mini blocks are just too much fun